High-efficiency atomic entanglement concentration for quantum communication network assisted by cavity QED

Quantum entanglement is the key resource in quantum information processing, especially in quantum communication network. However, affected by the environment noise, the maximally entangled states usually collapse into nonmaximally entangled ones or even mixed states. Here we present two high-efficiency schemes to complete the entanglement concentration of nonlocal two-atom systems. Our first scheme is used to concentrate the nonlocal atomic systems in the partially entangled states with known parameters, and it has the optimal success probability. The second scheme is used to concentrate the entanglement of the nonlocal two-atom systems in the partially entangled states with unknown parameters. Compared with the other schemes for the entanglement concentration of atomic systems, our two protocols are more efficient and practical. They require only an ancillary single photon to judge whether they succeed or not, and they work in a heralded way with detection inefficiency and absence of sophisticated single-photon detectors in practical applications. Moreover, they are insensitive to both the cavity decay and atomic spontaneous emission.